£10/Month to Rent a VHS Player?

Leao16

Hi, my grandmother has being paying £10 per month for the past ten years to rent a VHS player. The company that originally rented out the VHS player was Radio Rentals, but they have since ceased to trade and have merged to form Boxclever with Granada Ltd.

Effectively, Boxclever have charged my grandmother over £1,000 to use an outdated piece of technology that she could easily buy outright for under £40 from eBay.

As part of the rental service, Boxclever send out an engineer if my grandmother experiences any problems with the player. An engineer apparently came last year to install a new VHS player. It was the Sanyo HV-DX3E which was "new" in 2004. To add insult to injury, after the engineer had installed the player, my grandmother reasonably asked if he could show her how to use it. The engineer replied that unfortunately he could not, as it would take over 2 hours for the VHS player to "warm up".

Boxclever appear to have been exploiting my grandmother for far, far too long. Is there anything I can do other than urging her to cancel her contract and buying her a new VHS player?

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated!

Leao

MamaMoo_2

Unfortunately, there's very little you can do about past payments as long as your grandparents are of sound mind and knew what they were paying for.
However, going forward, you should get them to cancel their subscription and buy a machine of their own. They could probably even get one free on Freegle/Freecycle.
Have a look through any contracts to find out if and how they can cancel.

arcon5

How are they exploiting her? Okay the service is expensive and unnecessary since you can buy them cheap these days - but unless they pressurised her in to it that 10 years ago or rejected any cancellation request I fail to see how they've done wrong.

Buy her a player and tell her to cancel the subscription, that's all you can do

dalesrider

Leao16 wrote: »

Boxclever appear to have been exploiting my grandmother for far, far too long. Is there anything I can do other than urging her to cancel her contract and buying her a new VHS player?

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated!

Leao

Where is the exploitation here. Clearly your grandmother must be happy with the product and using it.

All you can do is advise her. Or how about going and buying her a new PVR and show her how to use it....
That is what my daughter did for her grandparents.

Renting products like these has always been a mugs game. But I guess your grandmother comes from a age when few people could afford to buy these products. So rental was the only option.


Can you still buy new VHS players????

I though that these had died out years ago.

Leao16

arcon5 wrote: »

How are they exploiting her?

I agree that Boxclever probably acted within the law, although I expect that there are legal grounds for complaint when their engineer farcically claimed that he couldn't show my grandmother how to use her "new" (i.e. 8 years old) VHS player because it needed two hours to "warm up".

Are there no laws to protect vulnerable consumers? What would happen if Boxclever hypothetically charged £100 per month to rent this old VHS player?

Auntie-Dolly

I think you really did have to leave VCRs to warm up on installation as they had condensation in them & this had to dry. (I'm not making this up - honest!)

zoob

Auntie-Dolly wrote: »

I think you really did have to leave VCRs to warm up on installation as they had condensation in them & this had to dry. (I'm not making this up - honest!)

Yes indeed, used to sell VCR'S for a living and this was normal on new machines when first installed, and it's in the instructions.

mjm3346

Leao16 wrote: »

I agree that Boxclever probably acted within the law, although I expect that there are legal grounds for complaint when their engineer farcically claimed that he couldn't show my grandmother how to use her "new" (i.e. 8 years old) VHS player because it needed two hours to "warm up".

Are there no laws to protect vulnerable consumers? What would happen if Boxclever hypothetically charged £100 per month to rent this old VHS player?

No legal grounds for complaint about allowing the player to reach room temp before using (warm up).

As long as a contract is correctly drafted, the consumer is mentally capable of handling their own affairs, was not put under duress etc to sign there should be no problem with paying £100 a month (not much different to paying £1000 for car insurance instead of shopping around and finding it for £400).

arcon5

Leao16 wrote: »

I agree that Boxclever probably acted within the law, although I expect that there are legal grounds for complaint when their engineer farcically claimed that he couldn't show my grandmother how to use her "new" (i.e. 8 years old) VHS player because it needed two hours to "warm up".

Are there no laws to protect vulnerable consumers? What would happen if Boxclever hypothetically charged £100 per month to rent this old VHS player?

Poor customer service, but unless the contract provides for support they are doing nothing wrong.

How have they taken advantage of a vulnerable woman? Was he vulnerable when originally engaging them in their services? They have even changed it to a newer version so she is clearly complicit to the service.

But they are not charging £100 per month, they are charging £10 per month so clearly not abusing the situation. In fact hen you consider the fact they have to send somebody to set it up it doesn't really look that bad. Unless they have singled her out to push a significantly higher premium on her simply because she is vulnerable? Which is highly unlikely considering the price.
There are rules in place to protect vulnerable individuals being exploited - but she's not bein exploited. Otherwise based on this logic Tesco express are also exploiting her for selling her a tin of beans for 50p which is available for 25p in their supermarket down the road.

unholyangel

Leao16 wrote: »

I agree that Boxclever probably acted within the law, although I expect that there are legal grounds for complaint when their engineer farcically claimed that he couldn't show my grandmother how to use her "new" (i.e. 8 years old) VHS player because it needed two hours to "warm up".

Are there no laws to protect vulnerable consumers? What would happen if Boxclever hypothetically charged £100 per month to rent this old VHS player?

There are plenty of laws protecting consumers. CPRs, SoGA, DSRs, UTCCR, UCTA etc.

But the problem is that nothing you've said gives the impression that the company have broken these laws.

Companies shouldnt mislead consumers etc, but have they actually been mislead or just not been savvy enough to look for a better deal?

johnmc

Nip down to the tip and get one for a fiver. Cancel the agreement.